PanNotes

According to the Gleaner the First Global website was hacked sometime yesterday. Also, according to a release by NCB (originally heard on the radio but the advisory can be found here) their customers have been receiving phishing emails that links to a replica of NCB’s website. The email asks NCB customers to enter/change their personal information.

Now, hacking and phishing are nothing new. They have been very prevalent in other countries. But I’m wondering if these two attacks are the start of a trend. Jamaican financial institutions have certainly had websites for years now. Why the increase of attacks now (if this wasn’t just a fluke)? Is it that we are more visible or just more vulnerable?

I certainly hope that First Global wasn’t keeping users personal information on their website and that this will lead to better security considerations by our financial websites. There is not much you can do against phishing, some of the biggest on-line companies have the same problem. Paypal comes to mind. The response NCB gave was the correct one I think. Notifying their customers as soon as possible of the threat. Let’s hope no one lost their life savings because of this fraudulent behaviour :)

I would love to hear more about these two stories and I wish them the best of luck in dealing with their individual situations.

Note: I never really understood how people got caught by phishing attempts. It’s a little bit like those Nigerian emails - never understood those either.